All the Numbers

Larsen's maudlin debut traces a year in the life of Ellen Banks, a divorced mother of two whose 11-year-old son, James, gets mowed down by a Jet Ski during the family's annual summer vacation. The novel's best scenes come early and are alive with detail—in the hospital, at the funeral, Ellen walking the dog in the snow with Danny, her surviving son. But after she buries James, the novel loses focus. Ellen throws herself into the case against the Jet Ski pilot, at which point the narrative adopts the mood of an overly sentimental, made-for-TV legal procedural. Larsen throws in a couple of surprises in the book's second half—Ellen arranges an ill-advised talk with the press and coincidentally runs into the jet-skier's mother at a coffee shop—but the case's outcome is never in doubt. There are bright moments, but the book feels like a novella stretched too thin. (Aug.)